Posted on 12/15/2018 6:11:22 PM PST by rebuildus
Clint Eastwood's "The Mule" is Out (A Tale of Two Movie Reviews)
I’ve always loved movies.
The first movies I remember were when my older sister—for some reason—would take me along when she went to the Drive In. She was probably baby sitting and wanted to get out of the house! Drive Ins were big in Southern California in the late 60s, early 70s.
The first movie I remember was Paint Your Wagon, but I remember nothing about it, except I didn’t like it or understand it.
The second was Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke. It was raw and masculine. I remember it and liked it.
From then on I used to sneak into the movie theater near my house. It had just become a multi-theater (six) complex, so I was in heaven!
At some point I started to watch the movies of Clint Eastwood. Again, raw and masculine. Liked them. Liked them a lot!
I’ve liked a whole lot of Clint Eastwood movies. My favorite is Gran Torino. If you haven’t seen it, do yourself a favor and rent it. You won’t regret it.
For a period, my favorite movie makers were Clint and Mel Gibson, but I can’t remember a compelling Mel Gibson movie since Apocalypto . And Clint just kept making great movies. So now it’s just Clint.
So I just stumbled on an article that said Clint has released a new movie called The Mule. It’s a true story about a politically incorrect white man in his 80s (Eastwood, who’s returned for perhaps one last shot at acting) who is broke, alone, and facing the foreclosure of his business. He’s offered a job driving, which turns out to be as a drug courier for a Mexican cartel!
Here’s the movie’s trailer.
While growing up I liked to read the newspaper (my family got three at one point, because my older brother was a delivery boy). I loved both the sports and entertainment pages.
My favorite movie reviews were Robert Hilburn’s in The Los Angeles Times. He was the main critic and movie editor at The Times from 1970 to 2005. He’d really get into these movies, and break them down in various ways.
I developed a habit of reading movie reviews.
Even to this day if I hear about a movie, I have a tendency to want to check out a review about it.
When I heard about Clint Eastwood’s new movie, The Mule, I was interested. For one, Gran Torino’s writer, Nick Schenk, also wrote The Mule. I love good movie writing, and dabbled in it myself for a time. I was also curious to see what reviewers would say about the new movie, given that Clint is a libertarian with conservative leanings, and everything is so political these days.
Sure enough, I found reviews about the movie written by liberals. But they were different. The first, by David Ehrlich of IndieWire, didn’t hide his bias; yet he was able to put it aside and watch the movie, noting the depth of its message and its artistic merit. He ended up loving it.
The second review was by Leigh Monson of the blog Birth. Movies. Death. Looking at Leigh’s bio and photo, I honestly couldn’t tell if Leigh was a woman or man. Leigh’s Twitter tagline says “Queer. Trans. Enby…” I had to look this up. Per the Urban Dictionary, “enby” means “non binary”— in other words, neither boy nor girl.
In any case, the title of Leigh’s review is The Mule Review: Clint Eastwood’s Long Middle Finger, so I think we can surmise Leigh was going to have issues with the movie. Worse is the subtitle of the review: “Who’s excited for two hours of an old conservative dude telling you to go f*** yourself?”
Okay… Isn’t that nice?
I have not yet seen the movie, but I saw enough in the trailer to make me realize that Clint Eastwood is touching on some powerful, emotional themes, not the least of which is regret for hurting his family while he pursued making movies and money. He deals with issues that transcend politics—issues that anyone should be able to relate to.
It’s mind boggling that someone (like this reviewer) can have a heart so hard that they can’t see the humanity of another person, even while their interest group (and other interest groups like it) demands that others see their humanity. I have no doubt that this “non-binary” reviewer harbors a deep hatred for masculinity, as embodied by Clint Eastwood.
The country singer, Toby Keith, was playing golf recently with Clint Eastwood. When he asked the eighty-eight year old man what keeps him going, Clint said, “I just get up everyday and don’t let the old man in.” So Toby wrote a song with that title for the movie. If you watch this and it doesn’t affect you, then maybe you too have what it takes to write a nasty review about the movie.
There are several other interesting stories regarding people close to Clint Eastwood related to this movie. One is that actress Sondra Locke, who was involved in a long relationship with him, which started after they appeared together in the movie The Outlaw Josey Wales, died just before the release of The Mule.
Another is that Clint’s daughter, Laurie Murray, was acknowledged for the first time as his daughter at the Los Angeles premiere of The Mule. Laurie was reportedly given up for adoption by her mother at birth, and only found out Clint was her father after a search for her biological parents as an adult.
The third story is that Clint’s asked another daughter, actress Alison Eastwood, to come out of retirement to appear with him in The Mule, and she did!
And how’s the movie doing? Not bad at all, earning $6 Million on Friday. That’s his second biggest opening day ever (Gran Torino earned 9.6 Million in 2009).
Clint Eastwood is far from a perfect man. Including Laurie, he has had eight children by six different women. In fact, all eight were at The Mule premiere.
In fact, one thing that is giving his recent movies extra depth is his increasing willingness to reveal his personal failures through his characters.
And despite these failures, Clint still exudes the aura of a man’s man. He is fiercely independent, hard working, and has always refused to march to the beat of someone else’s drum.
To me, he’s the most interesting film maker we have left. He is an American treasure. And we may have seen his last movie—at least as an actor.
But perhaps the most important trait Clint Eastwood carries is his masculinity, and refusal to back away from it, even in this rabidly anti-white man age we find ourselves in.
If America and the West are to be saved, it will be because masculinity refused to die. Long live Clint Eastwood! And long live masculinity!
I welcome your comments.
Patrick Rooney is the Founder of PRRooney.com (Freedom. Rediscovered…). He is also the author of GREEK PHYSIQUE: The Simple, Satisfying Way to Sculpt Your Body, Even if You’re Old, Weak, or Broken Down. To reach Patrick, email him at info@prrooney.com
Just saw it, liked it a lot but didn’t understand why they were so over-the-top with that hispanic guy mistakenly pulled over by the cops, with his extravagant level of cop fear.
I was sort of waiting for the truck to blow up, which never happened.
Liked the rest of it, though.
” The Mule.”
Originally he had 2 more mules but he gave them to a nun named Sarah.
Dang, I figured posters here would be bright enough not to give away spoilers only one day after a movie release.
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He started out as Roudy on Raw Hide.
Nice catch.
Patrick Rooney loves to talk about himself.
The movie? Not so much.
Rowdy Yates.
Rowdy Yates. He was on Rawhide when he had a hit with A Fistful of Dollars, and he was outta there!
Overall good solid Clint film, interesting, funny moments, worth seeing.
But that scene with the hispanic guy being pulled over was as if all of Hollywood said 'Clint, you don't do it this way, and we will shoot everyone you care about.' It didn't fit, truly it was stupid, it was at least 5 times over-the-top-overdone, but the point is, it didn't fit, no way it was part of the original script.
But whatever the hell that came from, I liked the rest of it. Not a classic, but no problem paying the money to see it.
Yeah, that was a good movie.
One thing I gotta say for Clint, he NEVER does those gratuitous, mean and stupid slaps at Western Civ.
Oh, I just read that the blonde who played his daughter in the film (the one fretting about him not coming to her wedding) was in fact played by his REAL daughter, Allison Eastwood.
I didn’t realize it when I was in the movie, some hours ago.
Yeah, who knew what a director he would turn out to be.
Clint speaks to Obammy,,,
Absolutely Priceless!
[Marin] Independent Journal, Oct. 1, 19512 Men Escape Death In Crash Off Marin Shore
Two servicemen, who battled a thick gray fog and a strong surf for almost an hour last night following a plane landing in the ocean near the Marin shore, are returning to their service units today uninjured.
Army Pvt. Clinton Eastwood, who wandered into the RCA radio station at Point Reyes after struggling in the ocean, told radio operators he and the pilot were forced to land their AD-2 bomber in the ocean and left on life rafts.
Eastwood said he was returning to Ford Ord from his house in Seattle when the mishap occurred.
The pilot, Naval Lt. F.C. Anderson, landed his life raft on the shore at Kehoe Ranch near Pierce Point. He is stationed at Mather Air Force Base in Sacramento.
Just curious
Is the movie about Clint being a drug mule
How does that make for a good movie when our country is fighting massive drug use and deadly Fentanyl
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